Some spies are felled by poison darts. For Sydney Bristow, the culprit was the curse of Mork & Mindy.
Bristow went down Wednesday, with ABC confirming what the Nielsen ratings had been saying all season: Alias is done.
The Emmy-winning action-spy series that made a brand-name star of Jennifer Garner will air its final episode in May, the network said.
Alias' exit makes it the latest series to meet its end on ABC in the 8 p.m., Thursday time slot. No scripted show has survived more than a year there since Mork & Mindy was canceled in 1982. Claire Danes (My So-Called Life), James Denton (Threat Matrix) and Benjamin Bratt (Knightwatch) are among the stars who needed other vehicles--and time slots--to achieve more lasting success.
ABC moved Alias to Thursday nights on the heels of its most successful season ever airing on Wednesday nights after Lost. And so a show that averaged more than 10 million viewers became a show that averages about 7 million viewers. Not that ABC didn't have its reasons for throwing Alias to the sharks. For one, Invasion is pulling slightly bigger numbers in its freshman year on Wednesday nights than Alias was pulling in its fourth year. And for another, Alias just looked like a show that was about done with its mission.
Garner got pregnant, necessitating a jump-the-shark story line in which her Bristow alter ego got pregnant, too; and, creator J.J. Abrams got Tom Cruise, landing a gig writing and directing Mission: Impossible 3.
Even with the writing on the wall in big, bold letters, Alias executive producer Jeff Pinkner said in a statement that the crew was "very saddened to face reality that Alias is coming to an end." He promised a "surprising" and "thrilling" finale.
Not scheduled to air for the remainder of November sweeps, Alias will return with new episodes in December, before taking an eight-week break starting in January--the better to allow Garner, due to deliver her and husband Ben Affleck's first child any week now, some down time. The show will return in March and run through the end of the season.
Technically, ABC did not uncharitably cancel Alias on the day before Thanksgiving. Rather, under the cover of long holiday weekend media darkness, it announced that the "countdown to [the] Alias series finale" could begin.
Alias, which premiered on ABC on Sept. 30, 2001, joins the WB's 7th Heaven as long-running series bowing out in May.
In other departure news, E! Online television columnist Kristin Veitch reported Wednesday that CBS has pulled the plug on freshman sci-fi series Threshold. The show ran a distant third in its time slot on Tuesday night.